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Monday, May 28, 2012

When I was 10 years old, three of my friends and I decided to run away to the creek for three days. We were all set for our adventure, had written letters to our parents, and may have even gathered up some stuff for our survival, but in the end I called it off. My mom was pregnant with my sister and due any day, and I didn't want to miss her arrival, also I didn't want to stress my mom out, or make her think she or the new baby was the reason I was running away.

I wonder what would have happened had we gone through with it. Clearly
we would have been fine, judging by the list of supplies we were
going to bring:

It says:

Dear Mom and Dad,I'm running away with a few friends. Don't worry and please don't get mad but whatever you do don't ever call the police, and don't panice and call a serch party to come and hunt me down!I'll be back in 3 daysI brought every I need:old clotheswarm clothes & blanketstentlots of foodlots of waterfishing poles & netspillowsleeping bagflashlightsandlesbrush soapshampoounderwearhat toothbrush & toothpastelotionbug spraytoliet paperwalkietalkiesbikesglovesstringclothes pinswatch borax

See don't worry or get mad think of it this way I'm camping. I'll be back in 3 days I promise! If I don't I'll miss you TO MUCH. I'm not alone. This is just to prove I can take care of myself.

With love from,Sugar Dale

I think it is pretty cute that I signed it Sugar Dale. I probably thought that would make the letter seem a bit sweeter.

Monday, May 21, 2012

1. Buy a boy's dress shirt. Or make one.
2. Wear a cool tie, and learn how to tie it correctly. (I prefer the four in hand.)
3. Steal your boyfriend's tie bar.
4. Tuck in your shirttails.
5. Don a pair of Philip Johnson-like glasses.
6. Ditch the purse and just carry the essentials in your pockets.
7. Put a tidy part in your hair.
8. Keep it feminine by wearing a skirt.

After I shaved my head bald for Halloween, I decided that I would grow my hair out just for fun. And let me tell you, it has NOT been fun. I've had a few weird lengths (currently in one), most of the time I am wearing a helmet (either practicing roller derby or riding my bike) which can really ruin a hairdo, and, honestly, I just don't know what to do with this shit. It blows in the wind, it needs to be brushed, blow dried, curled, straightened, bleh. So why am I continuing this farce? For a very stupid reason really: another Halloween costume.

Come October I hope to look like this:

I've got the glasses, and I'll make the costume, I just need another couple of inches to achieve this look which I'll hopefully have by October. Man my hair grows so slowly. In 18 months, I can only boast 7" of hair. Geez.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

I am not exactly sure how long ago it was, perhaps about two years,
when a friend had a birthday party at a roller skating rink. A few
friends and I actually drove to Phoenix from San Diego for the day just to go.
And I discovered I was pretty good on skates. I had skated a bunch when I
was a kid: the annual school field trip to Sycamore Springs
roller skating rink (because of course little Seneca, Kansas didn't have
one), or skating on the smooth sidewalks around the courthouse a block
away from my childhood home, or on the concrete floors of our basement.
Me on my quads and my brother in his strap-on-over-the-shoe roller
blades.

I guess all that childhood training really
sticks with you, because years later at that birthday party, I was doing
pretty well. After skating, my boyfriend said something to me like,
"You know they have roller derby now." When we got home we looked it up
and I knew right then that I wanted to do it.

After a quick Google search I found that San Diego had a roller skating rink, so my sister and I
went skating one night, and all my dreams were crushed. Ah man, MY ACHING KNOBS hurt so badly, I couldn't even
skate for the whole night, or think about putting skates on ever again.
But alas I got back on my parents' insurance, and eventually had bunion
surgery in August of 2011. By January 2012 I was cleared to do whatever I
wanted. I could run, jump, and yes, skate!

During
my recovery from bunion surgery, I was obsessively researching roller derby, how
the game was played, what type of skates to buy, which league to join, (San Diego has a few). I ended up choosing The San Diego Derby Dolls because they
seemed the most organized, played on both banked and flat track, and their practice facility was about 8 blocks from my house.

Every three months they recruit new skaters to join their boot camp
training. I didn't feel like I was quite ready for the January signup (the non use of my legs during bunion surgery recovery left them pretty weak and measly), and a was a little low on cash at that time anyway, but I made it for the April orientation, and started bootcamp.

The boot camp is divided into three levels. The first level is mostly learning how to skate with good posture, how to fall safely, and how to do a few different types of stops. Level two is learning agility, gaining speed and endurance, blocking, as well as transitioning from forwards to backwards skating and back again. And level three is where I'll really start learning to play roller derby, taking and giving hits, learning strategy, and partaking in scrimmages. After I graduate from level three, I can be recruited to a team.

I just passed level 1 last week. (Cool!) Now all of that falling safely has turned into getting hit and hopefully falling safely and getting back up quickly to get back on the track. Man it is so much fun.

Since this blog is about all things Sugardale, and since Sugardale will be my roller derby alter ego (we can't officially choose names until we make it to level 3 in boot camp, but am pretty positive I'm going with Sugardale), I will also be posting about my life as a Derby Doll.

I didn't feel like going to the studio today, so instead I started changing some colors and things on my blog, and then changed them back. Then I thought I really ought to post about something.

Since one of my most recent posts was about the sofa that Mikey and I reupholstered, I thought I'd give you a little update about that. In the last post, I was so very close to being done. In these next photos you'll see we changed the back cushion from stuffing to foam, and we added the buttons, and that's it. Just those two little things made this sofa look a million times better.

We still need to shorten the legs by about 2 inches, and we are going to add some bolsters. Both of those will have to wait though, because the place I got the fabric is currently out of the blue, and we haven't found the right set of legs.

I was going to do a tutorial about the whole thing, but once we started making it, it was so annoying to stop and take pictures for every step. I am not even sure if I did everything the right way, and therefore don't feel like I have the authority to say this is how it is done.

I will however give you a brief summary of how I went about reupholstering this beast. And maybe it will inspire you to reupholster something yourself or maybe you'll learn from me and realize it might just be worth the money to have a professional do it, because I don't think I'll ever do this again.

So firstly, I had Mikey to help me. There is no way I could have done this all on my own. Then I had to figure out how much fabric was needed. For this sofa, which is about 7 feet long, I used 13 yards of fabric. That's a lot. Obviously, that will be different with every re-upholstery project because furniture comes in all different shapes and sizes. To figure out the amount of yards I needed, I drew a bunch of diagrams, and checked and rechecked the math a million times.

Then I pulled out all of the existing staples, and removed the old fabric making a note of what piece when on first and how it went on. Once again, I drew a some diagrams for myself. Taking photos after each piece comes off might also help.

Then I added labels to every piece I took off. These will be used as pattern pieces. I used whatever labels to help me remember what the piece actually was and how it was oriented on the sofa. Examples:

Then I laid them all out onto my fabric:

Notice that all the pieces are pretty much rectangular with a few corners cut out or some weird slash in them. I did not cut the corners out yet, or cut the slashes, I did all of that as needed when I started stapling the pieces to the sofa.

I cut out the pieces where I have drawn the lines.

Then I put the pieces on and stapled them onto the wood of the furniture just as they were with the old fabric. (Look at your diagrams or pictures to see how the pieces were stapled on.) The last piece of old fabric that came off the furniture was the first new piece to put on, and so on.

And that is where the process photos stopped, because this was terribly frustrating to do, and once we started we just wanted to get the stupid thing done. But, overall that is pretty much how it works, or at least how it worked for me.

Post any questions in the comments section and I'll answer them there.

About Me

Sugardale is a nickname that my Grandpa gave me. He was Herbert "Dale" Roland. I was named after him; my middle name is Dale. So I was his Sugardale. Cute huh? When I was trying to think of a name for my clothing, Sugardale was just it. It has a vintage sound to it, and all of my designs are vintage inspired, it's cute, and it's probably the best nickname I've ever had. Thanks Grandpa!